Pope John Paul II is dead!

Pope John Paul II died at 9:37 PM Rome time yesterday. Like other fellow Catholics, I sincerely mourn his death. I've already dealt with many of the issues concerning his death back in my March 1 posting. I dealt with the issue of his possible successor and what lies ahead for the church. Rev. Anthony J. Figueiredo of Seton Hall University explained the situation very well about the concerns of the next pope:

''The first major concern for the next pope is evangelization of major areas that have lost the faith, particularly in Western Europe, where in many countries the church has really become irrelevant."

Europe, the historical heartland of Christendom, is indeed the main spiritual battleground of the present and near future. May Europe return to its cultural and spiritual roots. As Hilaire Belloc immortally proclaimed; "Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. The Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith."

I also pointed out at the time the mourning for the Pope's health, and how much of it was a complete farce. The same logic can easily apply now that he's actually dead. A very good example of this of course is President Bush's plans for attending the Pope's funeral. John Stanton gave a very good assessment of the President and his policies from a Catholic perspective in his piece "Operation American Pharisee: Bush's War on Jesus Christ". It was interesting to see Israel express sorrow over the Pope's death, especially since the Pope was often a staunch critic of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians; including the Israeli government's insistent plans for building a security wall(to which the Israeli government ignored him). This mourning comes almost literally a year after Jews launched a massive campaign against the Catholic film-maker Mel Gibson for his Passion of the Christ, so it's often interesting to see how these events play out. Without a doubt the most surprising incident of mourning came from Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate the Pope back in 1981. Whether genuine or not, this is nothing short of remarkable.

In that same post, I certainly criticized John Paul II for much of the harm he done to the church, all of which can be visually seen here. Many of his teachings clearly violated the traditional doctrines of the Church as outlined here. Nevertheless he did have his virtues. He certainly played an important role in fighting international Communism both in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Lech Walesa made note of the Pope's role in inspiring the Polish people to resist Soviet oppression and to reclaim their lost national heritage. To the Polish people he truly was a national hero. George Huntson Williams supposedly gives much reference to the Pope's devotion to Polish nationalism in his book The Mind of John Paul II: Origins of His Thought and Action. Being partially of Polish decent myself, this means a lot to me personally. We should also not forget John Paul II's tough stance when it came to sexual morals and the protection of life. He was clearly a man devoted to the well-being of mankind, even if his actions in that field were misguided. So overall, I think other traditionalist Catholics need to make a fair assessment of John Paul II and give him credit for the good things he accomplished during his pontificate while being aware of the not so good things he did. The Society of Pius X certainly had no trouble doing so.

Rest in Peace John Paul II!